My journey as a Dungeon Master
by HKGlenstid
Summary: Everyone starts somewhere with Dungeons and Dragons. I've learnt a lot on my journey of mayhem, trolling, and hilarious story telling; and I'm glad to share some of these stories with you.


So I'm relatively new to dungeons and dragons, and I don't really understand the rules as much as my other friends that play the game. Usually I just sit back and allow them to recite certain paragraphs from the books, the wikia, their home made thesis of why their character is not broken, and it actually leads to some interesting conversations—when they're not heated.

Anyway, I really love story telling, I have always loved creating fantasy like worlds with swords and magic. Something about the concept of a reality that is completely different to today's society has always intrigued me ever since I was young, which led me to writing.

I do however, tend to get lazy at times outside of a couple of fanfics I write now and then. And it was roughly at this time when I first started writing I came across dungeons and dragons.

I was in highschool, and one of my friends was talking about the crap they had to go through as dm. He talked about how he and a small group of our friends were playing dungeons and dragons 4th edition. A prime example of his complaints was the mage of the group who thought it was a smart idea to fireball a nearby village they wanted to stay at for quote on quote, the hell of it.

Of course the villagers retaliated, and they all managed to escape, except for the warlord, who rolled a critical fail, and was promptly held prisoner. There were a bunch of events like this, which usually a lot of death was involved, and my friend who was the dm suffered some serious doing trauma. Stuff like one of the players that couldn't be there for the second session was left in a ditch to die. Then I was told that their cleric at the time didn't know how to use his abilities and instead of hitting an enemy and healing an ally, he thought he had to hit the ally he was going to heal, practically doing nothing. Then one of the fighters accidentally stabbed themselves when trying to make a sword from lizard scales, and promptly bled out.

It was amazing to say the least to hear of such craziness in story telling.

I was amazed that there was such a game out there, and my young uncultured mind was thinking of all the possibilities that I could accomplish as a dm.

That night, I could not sleep. There I lay awake, just wondering if maybe, just maybe, if I should give this a shot? As a story teller, surely I would be amazing as a dm.

So the next day I was extremely tired, half asleep with bloodshot eyes like a zombie as I asked my friend '_What was the name of the game you were complaining about yesterday_?'.

Over the next year or so we went through a phase of each person in our friend group trying to dm, and when it was my turn I killed it. No seriously, I dmed so badly I killed the entire point of D&D.

Literally, I did no preparations, no dot points and what not; hell I didn't even know the story because I was used to creating stories on the fly with no prior planning. I might not have known that I had to read the whole dungeon master guide, player handbook, and monster guide, because I thought that 'I can make up the rules since I am dm, I don't need to read the books'.

Word of warning, please don't do this. It really won't work out unless you know the books off by heart.

The second problem for my first campaign was another blunder on my part. We had a total of 8 players that day. Not only was I overwhelmed by looking after all the characters, finding a way to make everyone relevant was too much for my childish imagination at the time. I wanted as many players as possible, because I thought it wouldn't be difficult no matter the amount of players. I simply wanted everyone in the friend group to have fun.

Never before have I endured this much suffering.

My third problem was the story. Back then we had the dm create the backstory for the characters for some reason. So I asked each player _"What about each character's motivations, their personality, what their backstory, or maybe even their favourite food?"_.

I was told just to make it up and it didn't matter. And so I thought it would be easier to put all the characters as the same backstory.

They're orphans.

The End.

The story I wanted was a time travelling save the world kind of campaign for some reason. It was complicated, incredibly thematic and thought provoking, and was probably not the best story to dump 8 main characters in.

Especially since I didn't plan anything.

The beginning of the story was set in a dystopian world in ruin. Demonkind had won a massive war against the creatures of the world, and the heroes were in their prison cells, just waiting for the day they get executed.

Now, here comes my fourth and final problem. At the time, all my friends were a bunch of trolls, and I severely underestimated how much they were out to get me. Upon escaping the cells after tricking the guard on duty, one of my friends thought it was a great idea to call out for help.

In an enemy castle.

Full of demon soldiers.

I didn't know what to do, so I looked at my friend who introduced me to this game, and he shrugs and just says 'work with it'.

So the players ended up having an army chasing them through the castle halls. The players were in a situation where they had one shield and one sword to share amongst them, and they could not damage or hit the soldiers of the castle due to their level 1 stats. And that's when they stumbled upon the plot twist.

Our heroes stumble upon the empty throne room of the demon king. They slam the giant doors shut and barricade it with anything they could find, but it was only a matter of time before the demon horde breaks through. It was a grand and massive hall with red velvet carpets leading to the throne and tall marble pillars holding the darken ceiling above their heads.

A single fist sized gem was laying on the throne. Its plain and a swirl of darkness moves inside the otherwise clear crystal ball. A presence is in the gem, as if it were observing the players every move.

Now there was originally going to be this compelling force to bring one of the heroes to touch the gem, as I didn't think they would be stupid enough to touch a potentially magical and dangerous object upon their first time seeing it.

But no, my idea of letting the players know that the gem was sentient or had some sort of intelligence was destroyed immediately.

Before the demon horde even attempts to break the door down, the rogue just grabs the bloody thing because he wanted to sell it later. Now you see, the gem was supposed to call out to those who are pure of heart, and if held by anyone that it does not see worthy, it would disappear. The players that would use it were namely the cleric, the paladin, and I was going to add in the fighter as in the story so far he was very noble as he tried to sacrifice himself to save the others. But it was the rogue…the rogue, who took the sentient gem because he wanted to sell it.…

So the stone activates either way, and the players find themselves being transported to a grassy field, something that was uncommon in this apocalyptic world. But it wasn't any normal field, it was the one from their home town before it was tragically destroyed. And the cleric shouts out.

"It's an illusion!"

Cue a couple of wasted spells.

I then told them, _"You've all come to the conclusion that you travelled back in time to when you were all teenagers."_

That's right, the plot twist was that they could go back in time to change their fate. The entire story was based around this plot, and I thought it was motivating enough to know that if they do nothing, the world will literally come to an end. I roughly knew what their future was, and it was their job to save the world with that knowledge. That was the idea of the campaign. So knowing the stakes the first thing they did was go back to their orphanage that they grew up at…where they were welcomed with open arms by their motherly figure.

And the fighter immediately performed a suplex on their mother.

This sorta started a greeting where each time they wanted to say hi, they would grab each other and perform a suplex.

At this point I was contemplating whether I wanted to continue or not, but since I didn't know when I would next dm I decided against it and persevered and prayed that it would not get worse. I regretted that decision till this day.

So the players decide to plan for the future. The fighter, when he wasn't abusing his mother, starts learning blacksmithing under a retired dwarf. The cleric and paladin both become a member of the town church, hoping to increase their favour with their respective gods. The rest decide to earn cash, whether it would be hunting for supplies in the nearby woods, or challenging random npcs to arm wrestling matches in the tavern. So far everything was going great, and then here came the true start of the adventure.

The army was arrived in town, recruiting able bodied youngsters to join the forces. There had been rumours of demons invading small towns and villages, and they were looking for extra soldiers to train for what they believed was an upcoming war. Here they were, the group was ready. Money from their hunting and arm wrestling, a blacksmith who could craft, and the cleric and paladins were practically radiating in holiness. Every single player was geared up for future events…

And they all refused to go along with the army…

So in the end, the army left, and everyone just kept to their daily routines of attending church, hunting and blacksmithing for about an extra hour after.

So if there are lessons that I learnt from my first time as the dm of a D&D campaign it's firstly actually do some planning. It is literally crucial to plan out the world, the npcs, the encounters, and the overall story checkpoints that the players will need to reach.

The second was that I needed better friends…


End file.
